


Just A Few More Days

by MycroftRH



Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bipolar Tim Drake, Blanket Permission, Gen, Implied/Referenced Bipolar Disorder, Medication Side-Effects, Podfic Welcome, Whump, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 11:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20853008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MycroftRH/pseuds/MycroftRH
Summary: Tim can keep this hidden, for just a few more days.  It's fine.  He's fine.  He just needs to keep Batman from noticing anything for a few more days, and then he'll be back in top condition.





	Just A Few More Days

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2019, for prompts 1 and 2 - "Shaky Hands" and "Explosion".
> 
> Please be warned that Tim does something that is not self-harm as such but does involve him incidentally causing himself minor, non-graphic damage.

“Red Robin, I expect you at the Cave practicing with projectiles within half an hour.” Batman’s voice might have sounded monotone to an outsider, but Tim could hear the disappointment dripping from every syllable. He nodded silently and turned to walk towards his cycle.

“It’s pointless,” came Robin’s voice, as liquid with disdain as his father’s had been with disappointment. “If he isn’t competent yet, a few more hours missing targets won’t help. He’s clearly incapable.” The words were superficially addressed to Batman, but Tim could hear that Robin’s eyes were firmly pointed at Tim’s back. Tim carefully kept all his muscles soft and relaxed; he didn’t tense his neck, his jaw, his shoulders, he didn’t bow his head. Damian would see the slightest muscle contraction, as clear an admission of weakness as a verbal response.

He kept his hands under his cape and begged them to stay still. The harder he tried to relax his hands and forearms the more they wanted to jerk and shake. He mounted his cycle and gripped hard on the handles, the tension pulling his hands quiet for at least a moment, and took off down the road without looking back.

It was just one miss. Barely a miss. A few inches off. Robin had been fine. The R-shuriken had barely brushed the edge of his cape. Anyone but a Bat or an Arrow would have thought the throw impossible. But he was a Bat, and he was trained to perfection. A few inches might as well be a mile.

Tim zoned back in to realise he was almost to the Cave. His cycle was jerked off the side of the road into the bushes almost before the fact came to conscious awareness. He couldn’t go to the Cave, couldn’t practice under Batman’s searingly keen eye. There was no way he could work for the hours that would be expected without Bruce seeing the tremor in his hands.

Batman couldn’t know. If he saw, he’d pull Red Robin from active duty immediately. Tim knew he wouldn’t be able to live without Red Robin. Not just now. He needed the purpose, the activity, needed something to keep his mind running.

He was fine. He’d talked to his psychiatrist, he’d been taken off the lithium, he just needed a week to finish tapering down the dosage and then the tremor should go away. It wasn’t a real issue. He just needed to keep his hands hidden from Batman for a few days. Just a few more days. Everything had been fine until that one damn throw, when his hand wavered just as he released.

Batman would overreact, he’d declare Tim unfit just from the tremor, let alone the withdrawal, he wouldn’t even trust Tim’s judgement stuck in a chair in the Cave, and that was something Tim knew he couldn’t handle. Not right now.

So he just needed to hide his hands for a few more days.

Some way that didn’t get Bruce furious enough to ground him and defeat the point. No running off to a Nest, no disobedience, no laziness.

Tim reached into a pouch on his upper chest. Pressed a button. Carefully wedged the object into a crevice in the cycle. Checked his helmet. Took a deep breath. To the tune of a merry tick - tick - tick - Red Robin accelerated back onto the road, aimed at some marshy ground to the side.

The world burst in color and sound as the explosive detonated. Tim flew off the bike, and up, and he threw himself into a roll, and grass and dirt crashed up against his visor as he bounced and skidded into the mud, crashing down on a thigh, a shoulder, a knee, and then he was lying, staring up through smeared dirt at the stars.

He ran through a checklist of bones and muscles. Sternum, ribs, fingers, toes, ankles. He smiled. A few minor bruises, obviously, but nothing broken, nothing twisted. The fall was controlled, the armor well-padded, the ground soft, everything according to plan.

Red Robin reached up and tapped his comm. “My cycle was sabotaged. Small explosive, no injuries. I’ll need a pickup, something big enough to take the bike. Locator beacon’s turned on.”

There. Now he could spend the rest of the night “investigating” the “sabotage”, off in a nice, private corner of the Cave. No fuss, no muss. And if someone noticed something a little off, well, he’d just been in an explosion. Synergy!

Oracle spoke in his ear, letting him know a remote-piloted vehicle was on the way, and he relaxed back onto the soft ground, his only movement a faint tremble in his left hand.

Just a few more days.


End file.
